Beautiful
by Morbidly Obscure
Summary: Ciel is beautiful all right-a rose covered in thorns, but Snake can't resist reaching out... CielxSnake


**Oh God, I've been wanting to write a CielxSnake for what feels like forever. I reeeeeeeaaaaally hope I didn't mess it up or get anyone OOC. Tell me your thoughts in a review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't even own a car, let alone the sheer awesomeness of any of these characters.**

**Warning: Light slash.**

"Well. Don't you look miserable."

Ciel's voice shook Snake from his thoughts. He'd been passing by Ciel's office on his way to help Finny in the garden, and the door had been open. Once one caught a glimpse of Ciel, it was rather difficult to stop staring. The window behind Ciel's desk highlighted the boy in sunset's glow, bouncing off his blue-black hair and making his one sapphire eye shimmer with inner light.

Previously, he'd been absorbed in paperwork, but now he looked at Snake with his usual expression of indifference and irritation, though if Snake wasn't mistaken, there was something else in Ciel's face—something like amusement. Embarrassed to have been caught, Snake looked down at the floor.

"I'm fine...says Goethe."

"No, you had a very weird look on your face just then," Ciel's azure eye narrowed, "And you were staring at me."

"I was only passing by...says Keats."

Ciel made a face. He glanced at the serpents clinging to Snakes body, then back at their owner.

"Send your little 'friends' on their way—I want to speak to you, not a pack of reptiles," the boy said, "then come in here."

Without having to be told twice, the creatures slithered obediently away. When the last of them had disappeared down the corridor, Snake stepped though the doorway, even shyer now without his friends.

"So what are you waiting for?" Ciel asked, "come here. I won't bite."

Snake approached the desk, worried that he was in some sort of trouble. He meant to ask what Ciel wanted, but he was so used to speaking through his friends, all he could get out was a stammered monosyllable.

"Y-yes?"

Meanwhile, a new light had appeared in Ciel's eyes. Talking to Snake without his friends was like seeing someone naked—stripped of protection and exposed. It gave Ciel a sick sort of enjoyment. When Ciel spoke, however, his voice was soft.

"I want to know what you were thinking just then. I want to know what's wrong."

Snake was surprised, both by Ciel's tone, and that the boy even cared. He searched for the words to answer, and Ciel waited patiently.

"I was thinking...just then..." Snake's voice was so low Ciel had to strain to hear, "that you are so...beautiful. And I am..." the youth motioned to a patch of scales on his cheek, "I am grotesque. I shouldn't be here."

Ciel stared at Snake for a few seconds after his monologue, then, to Snake's utter shock, began laughing. Snake had never heard Ciel laugh, not once, and now the child was practically hysterical.

"Me...I'm...you think I'm...oh, God... Beautiful?...oh God," Ciel gasped out between peals of laughter. Then, just as abruptly as he'd started, he stopped, "How ridiculous."

Ciel was shaking his head, still clearly amused, "And you're not 'grotesque,' as you put it. In fact, I'd say you got it turned around."

Snake managed a small chuckle of his own, "I don't think so."

"I've never really given a damn about appearances..." Ciel mused, drumming his fingers on the desk, "so petty."

Snake flushed, though he wasn't quite sure why, "People can't help what the see, or what they think about it. What's...clear as day to them."

Ciel didn't seem to hear him. The boy was staring off into space, as though lost in thought. Suddenly, a strange smile crossed his face.

"Snake, I'm going to show you something," Ciel said decisively, "and you'll see what I'm talking about."

"O-okay," Snake said, but he felt nervous. Something important was happening right now—he could feel that.

"Did you ever wonder why I wear this?" Ciel asked, motioning to his eye patch.

"You said once you lost your eye in an accident," Snake said softly, "please, you don't have to—"

"Quiet," Ciel cut him off, "just watch."

Then, Ciel took off the eye patch. Slowly, deftly, purposefully, like a woman doing a striptease, he untied the string and let the patch drop. Snake was surprised to see, not puckered, burnt scar tissue like that around Doll's deformed eye, but a continuation of creamy white skin and a thick fringe of black lashes.

Then, with even more excruciating slowness, Ciel opened the newly exposed eye, and Snake gasped in shock. Ciel, however, looked at Snake serenely.

"Wh-what is it?" Now, Snake stammered for reasons other than shyness.

"A mark," Ciel responded, unruffled as ever. The pentacle branded on his eye glowed with unholy, supernatural light, burning right into Snake's mind.

"_How?_ How did that happen to you?"

Ciel smiled a slow, maddening, _beautiful_ smile, "If you're going to work for me, Snake, you must understand something: this mansion is full of secrets. You'll have to learn to accept them, but not question them. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Snake nodded. He appreciated what Ciel was telling him, and he made a silent promise to protect these secrets, and the boy who kept them. A smile crossed Snake's lips, "And...you are not grotesque. Regardless of your secrets."

"Well, if you must know," Ciel leaned across his desk conspiratorially, "Neither are you. Different, obviously. Exotic."

Snake's eyes widened as Ciel reached forward to lightly grip his chin. The boy's branded eye seared into Snake, but he didn't look away for an instant.

"In fact," Ciel's eyes closed as he brushed his lips against Snake's, "I happen to find you quite...beautiful."

Snake's breath caught in his throat, and his heart slammed against it's protective bone cage as Ciel's mouth melded against his. He may have just gone into shock had a cool, inscrutable voice not interrupted.

"Young Master, I believe it's time for bed."

Ciel pulled away and straightened himself, while Snake stood there, stupefied.

"Hm, yes, it is, isn't it?" Ciel said, as though Sebastian was simply calling him away from a pile of paperwork, "Oh well."

Ciel stood and made his way across the room. He peered at Sebastian with curled up lips, corrupted eye smoldering obscenely. Almost immediately, Sebastian covered the mark with his hand. And led his charge out of the room with the air of a man protecting his lover's modesty.

"Goodnight, Snake," Ciel said over his shoulder as he crossed the office's threshold.

Snake stared after the pair helplessly, speechless and glued to the spot. The brief touch of Ciel's lips had left him trembling; chilled and burned at the same time, like one suffering a deadly bite from one of his friends. It was then that he realized that Ciel's beauty was a sort of poison—Snake had been infected, and now he was hooked.


End file.
